


Migraine

by taylor_tut



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Iron Dad, Irondad, Precious Peter Parker, Sick Character, Sick Tony, Sick Tony Stark, Sickfic, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 18:06:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15148829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: A birthday fic for my friend Cat on tumblr for Tony with a migraine.





	Migraine

It had been a long time since Peter had looked forward to something as much as he was looking forward to this sleepover at Stark Tower. 

While he’d never confess that to Tony, he’d talked Ned’s ear off about it at lunch since Monday, and May had heard him bouncing around the house excitedly all week. When he finally arrived at Stark Tower with an overnight bag, Tony answered the door and immediately squinted against the light of the sun. 

“Hi, Mr. Stark!” Peter chirped, walking through the open door and shrugging off his jacket. “Where should I put my bag?”

With a hand on his shoulder and no words, Tony guided Peter to the elevator and pressed the button to the 10th floor. 

He wasn’t saying much, Peter noticed, and looked a little pale. Likely he’d been down in the lab all day, possibly longer, and was starting to get tired. However, Peter had seen Tony get pretty exhausted before, and no matter how little he slept, nothing ever got him to stop talking.

“You alright, Mr. Stark?” Peter asked. “You’re quiet.”

Tony plastered on a smile and clapped Peter’s shoulder. 

“Just thinking,” Tony fabricated. “I was in the middle of an equation when you got here and I’m still working through it.”

Peter nodded, accepting that--it wasn’t too weird for Tony. “Oh,” he said, throwing his hands up in an apologetic gesture, “well, don’t let me distract you. I can be quiet.”

Tony quirked an eyebrow. “Quite a promise, coming from you,” he teased, “but nah; it’s all good.” The elevator doors opened to Peter’s floor of the tower and he stepped into the room through the doors that Tony held open for him. “Go ahead and get settled in, then we’ll order a pizza and get to work.” 

Tony left Peter in his room to unpack his things and massaged his temples with two firm fingers as soon as the door closed. 

Tony didn’t touch the pizza,  shrugging Peter’s concerns off with a lame excuse of having drank too much coffee and not being hungry. Peter knew better than to argue with it, because arguing with Tony was like arguing with the empty Iron Man suit,  but he kept a close eye on him. 

He noticed when Tony merely mimed working on his laptop, seeing no reflection of a lit screen in his sunglasses. He noticed when Tony turned the music down three separate times before declaring that it was preventing him from focusing and turning it off altogether. And he noticed how many times Tony took breaks to just breathe and rub his face with a firm hand. While he contemplated when and how to bring these things up, Tony had apparently decided to try his best to work on one of Quill’s guns, because he literally snapped Peter back to attention.

“Pete,” he said, having rolled his chair not far from Peter’s desk, “hand me that, will you?”

Peter frowned and looked over the many tools on the table next to him. 

“Hand you what?” he asked. 

Tony snapped a few more times impatiently, pointing vaguely. “That,” he maintained, “the--thing.” 

A slightly desperate, mostly confused look crossed Peter’s face. “You have to be more specific,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Tony sighed irritably. His brain and his mouth weren’t communicating, and it was frustrating. In his attempt to just reach past Peter and grab the tool he needed, the white spots decorating his vision intervened and he grabbed the wrong thing. After another two blind grabs, he finally felt the edges of the screwdriver in his palm, and he could feel Peter’s eyes on him. 

“Are you okay, Mr. Stark?” Peter asked. 

“Just tired,” Tony replied simply. Peter expected a long-winded excuse to back it up, but none came. Tony, pale and stiff, just sat back down in his chair without another word.

“Well,” Peter offered in a small voice, “if you need something, I’m here.” Tony grunted and nodded affirmatively.

After another half hour, the pain was cancelling out everything else. He felt overloaded, paralyzed, like lightning had struck his brain and his senses had no surge protector. His vision was spotted with blurry circles and he could taste copper in his mouth; Peter was talking to him but his voice was far away and tinny. 

Peter had, of course, noticed that something was off with Tony, but if he didn’t want to talk about it, Peter wasn’t going to force him. Instead, he was casually sipping at his soda and scrolling through lines of code on a tablet.

“How did you come up with this part?” Peter asked, air dropping a particularly brilliant line of code to Tony’s screen. “It doesn’t even look like it should work, but somehow it did?”

Tony flinched at the sound of the computer in front of him pinging with an incoming message, unable to bring himself to look at the bright screen. The kid had asked him something, but he hadn’t listened, nor did he want to ask him to repeat it. He wanted to sit in a dark room and never move again.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter asked when Tony didn’t reply, setting down the tablet and standing. Tony’s eyes were shut tight, his face scrunched in obvious pain, and the interior of his thumb and forefinger were pressed over his eyes. 

“Just--just a sec,” Tony managed through a tight jaw, stumbling blindly backward a few steps. His face was pale, drained completely of blood. Peter took a tentative step toward him and lunged forward just as Tony tripped backward over the leg of a chair. 

Peter yelped and reached out to catch him by the elbow and steady him. Tony staggered into the wall and leaned heavily against it, keeping his hand pressed firmly over his face, and wincing away from Peter’s concerned shouts. 

Tony scrambled to his feet and to the small bathroom connected to the workshop, slamming the door behind him. 

“Mr. Stark?” Peter cried. “What’s wrong?” Tony groaned miserably but didn’t have a chance to form a real reply through the retching. Despite not having eaten anything that day, he threw up. Enough was enough, and Peter entered the override code into the door handle (it hadn’t specifically been designed as a secret bathroom entrance, but after everything Tony’d been through, he knew better than anyone that it was easier to run than to hide, and for that reason, an unlockable door had seemed like a bad idea, no matter how private the room) and pushed the door open. Tony was collapsed on the ground, his arm covering his eyes, and he’d clearly just been sick.

“Oh my God, FRIDAY, what’s wrong with him?” Peter screeched, dropping to his knees beside Tony. He’d seen sick people before, but this wasn’t anything like normal sick people. Tony looked like he was dying.

Tony hissed a shushing noise between his teeth and Peter’s frantic movements halted. Tony pointed to the couch, and Peter led him to it, cooperating as he maneuvered himself so that his face was buried in the arm of the sofa.

“S’a migraine, Pete,” he managed to explain, voice muffled by the fabric and slurred as a side effect of the pain. “Nothin’ serious.” 

Peter’s mouth morphed into a soft “o” as he realized that Mr. Stark was not, in fact, dying, and that the panic he was doing was likely making it worse. 

“How long?” Peter asked. Tony had been acting off all day, and he really hoped that he hadn’t been in pain the whole time. 

Tony shook his head. “Aura all day,” he said, “but the pain didn’t get bad ‘til after dinner.” Tony hadn’t really eaten anything, Peter noted silently, but he wasn’t going to argue arbitrary points, not now. 

“What can I do?” he asked. “Do you have a prescription or something for these?”

“Ugh,” Tony groaned, “‘s’too late now. Gotta take it ‘fore the pain starts.”

Peter frowned. “Why didn’t you?” 

Tony just sighed. His posture was stiff even lying on the couch, none of his muscles having the courage to relax for fear that the pain would knock him down if he weren’t tensed for it.

“Do you think you can sleep?” Peter asked, exhaling slightly in relief when Tony nodded. He really wasn’t sure what he’d have been able to do if Tony had said no. No one else was in the tower, and unless it was a medical emergency, which he was pretty sure, though painful, this wasn’t, he didn’t want to call an ambulance. Peter didn’t have Happy’s number to take him to the hospital or even a pharmacy. 

“Do you want to sleep in your bed?” Peter suggested. Tony’s feet dangled off the end of the couch in a way that couldn't’  be comfortable, but he gave a thumbs down anyway. 

“M’fine here,” he muttered into the arm of the couch. Knowing when to back off--or, at least, learning, with the help of Tony--, Peter nodded and took the elevator upstairs to Tony’s bathroom, where FRIDAY helped him raid the medicine cabinet for painkillers, then to his bedroom, where FRIDAY helped him find the softest blanket out of the closet, then to the kitchen to brew a cup of coffee upon FRIDAY’s tip that caffeine sometimes helped. 

By the time he got back downstairs, Tony had already fallen asleep, and Peter decided that it was better just to leave him alone if he was comfortable. That proved to be a bad decision when, after an hour and a half, Tony started thrashing. Peter popped out one earbud and turned. 

“Mr. Stark?” Peter whispered, unsure whether he’d actually heard anything, since Tony had gone still. Muted twitches, barely visible, scarcely enough to make his fingers twitch, made his muscles flex so tightly that he was sure to be sore the next day. He whimpered, and Peter sprung up from his chair. 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter called, rushing to the side of the couch, “wake up. You’re having a nightmare.” He had to shake his shoulders, but Tony startled awake violently, swatting at Peter so hard he had to duck.

“Woah, Mr. Stark; calm down!” Peter soothed, pressing Tony’s hands to his sides. Tony’s eyes flew open and he woke up breathing heavily. He scanned the room for several seconds, his eyes bleary and unfocused, before Peter let up.

“Kid?” Tony asked, shrugging out of Peter’s grip.

“Are you with me now, Mr. Stark?” Peter asked, letting go when Tony nodded. “I think you had a nightmare,” Peter explained. 

Tony nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Sorry--they, uh. They happen if I go to sleep in pain.” 

Sympathy crossed Peter’s face, and Tony brushed it off. “It’s fine,” he reassured. “S’not as bad now that I got some sleep.”

Peter shifted. “Maybe you should go to bed, then,” he suggested. “You know, if it helps.” 

Tony offered a small smirk. “Like I’m gonna let you alone in my lab all night,” he countered. Peter’s troubled look didn’t dissipate. “I’m more comfortable here, anyway,” he promised. “You can keep working, if you want. Your room is ready for you whenever you want.” 

“I’ll stay at least until you fall asleep again,” Peter said. Tony just turned over back into the couch. 

“Suit yourself, kid,” he dismissed. 

“Goodnight, Mr. Stark,” Peter said, turning back to his tablet. It only took a few more minutes for Tony’s breathing to even back out into sleep. 


End file.
